Dear Burning,
When will Judith McNaught write a new story back in colonial times? She is by far my favorite author.

Bad Apple
via the Internet

Judith McNaught, who released the romantic suspense novel Night Whispers in November (Pocket Books), is currently working on another novel. Her next book, however, is not set in colonial times. Tentatively entitled Water's Edge, it is contemporary romance with a time-travel twist. Sure, she might take a detour to colonial times -- she is, after all, still in the process of writing -- but the story itself is not set during that period.

Bit o' history

Dear Burning Questions,
Can you tell me something about Longstreet Press in Atlanta? Was it named for CSA General Longstreet?

Alexander Ingram
Tuscaloosa, AL

From Longstreet Press: Longstreet is named for Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (1790-1870). He wrote what is arguably the first book by a Georgian, Georgia Scenes, a collection of 19 stories published in 1835. His regional humor influenced the later work of Mark Twain and even William Faulkner. Longstreet was a member of the Georgia State Assembly, and he later served as president of Emory College, Centenary College, Mississippi State University, and South Carolina State University. James Longstreet, the famous Confederate general, was his nephew.

Courageous women

Dear Burning Questions
I have heard that Beth Norman, who wrote Women at War, has a new book coming out about the nurses who served as prisoners of war in the Philippines. Do you have the title or date?

Janet L. Fickeissen
via the Internet

We've got both. Elizabeth M. Norman has a book coming out in May entitled We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese (Random House).

The return of our favorite Egyptologist

Dear BQ,
I love Elizabeth Peters's book The Ape Who Guards the Balance. Amelia Peabody is the best! What's next for this gal?

Sally Johnson
via the Internet

Peters's latest Amelia Peabody adventure will be released this June. The Falcon at the Portal (Avon) has everything you could want from a Peters's novel -- fake artifacts, dead bodies, and lots of mysterious doings.

The hour has come

Dear BookPage Friends,
Thank you for providing this opportunity. Are you able to share any information about one of my favorite authors, T. Jefferson Parker?

Barbara Bealer
Seward, NE

Laguna Beach-based writer T. Jefferson Parker has terrified and mesmerized readers with his six previous novels. This May he offers The Blue Hour (Hyperion), a tale that pits an unlikely pair of detectives/lovers against a serial killer.

O, yeah

Dear Burning Questions,
Does Sue Grafton have a new one coming out? "O" is for . . . ?

Helga Brunson
Anacortes, WA

It all began with A Is for Alibi, and now the writer who's all booked up for the next 20 years of her life has worked her way to the letter O. Sleuth Kinsey Milhone will next appear in October 1999 with O Is for Outlaw (Henry Holt).

Gedge update

Pauline Gedge's next book, The Hippopotamus Marsh, volume one in a trilogy, will now be published by Soho in April of 2000. The second and third volumes will follow at six-month intervals.

The big turnoff

This month brings showers, flowers, and National TV-Turnoff Week. The annual event is an effort to get Americans out of those recliners and away from those sets.

April 22-28, millions of individuals will voluntarily turn off their TV sets for seven days and rediscover life beyond TV. (Okay, maybe some of them will tape the shows they would otherwise miss, but still . . . ) So turn off -- and tune into a book instead! For more information, visit The TV-Free America Web site at www.tvfa.org.

A correction

In our March review of Philip Hamburger's Friends Talking in the Night, the reviewer incorrectly refers to the film High Noon. The movie under discussion in Hamburger's 1955 New Yorker article is not High Noon but The Man From Laramie, which was released in 1955 and starred Jimmy Stewart.